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each floor are clean. On the third floor, a girl exits an
apartment with a child in her lap. Every bang makes me
jump, because I have no doubts that the lady is family to
me. I walk confidently. I reach her door. Ants are roaming
around under her door. It was dark the last time, I had not
seen much. Now I notice flowerpots next to the stairs,
cactuses with white flowers. I push the door – it is open.
There is no sound. I go in. My heart is racing. I don’t know
how many minutes I stand at the threshold. A key enters
the lock of the neighbor’s door and twists inside – I rush
into the lady’s apartment and close the door behind me.
“Anybody home?” I ask.
There is no sound. I am in the hallway. I walk forward
asking, “Anyone home?” There is silence. The sounds of the
world have disappeared – no cars, no children crying, no
neighbor’s televisions, not a single sound. I walk forward
with small steps. Then I am in the middle of the room.
There is nobody. This solitude is terrifying. It is the first
time that I have been terrified by solitude and silence. I
don’t move for a few minutes, thinking that she is in the
kitchen or the bathroom. One wall of her room is
completely covered in framed photographs – children,
churches, old people. There were also framed pictures of
animals below – two of them of cats – one gray, the other a
white Van cat, and the other three next to them were of
dogs. “Nicely done portraits,” I think. There is a box further
in the room and a brown lamp next to it. The wall opposite